Interpersonal Media (Winter 2020)/Wiki Task 6

Wikipedia Task #6

Task

Make article "live."

Due Date

Friday February 14

Deliverables

Make contributions in Wikipedia and the class WikiEdu dashboard

• Polishing your article, it should be ready for public consumption. Here are some general suggestions.
• Move sandbox articles into the "(Article)" name space by following these detailed instructions.
• Once you have moved the article, visit the list of students in the WikiEdu dashboard and make sure that you are assigned the live article URL. If needed, remove the old one by clicking the "+" button to open the menu and using the "-" button next to the old "sandbox" copy of your article, then press "Save" at the top of the page once you are done.

Polishing Suggestions

Here are a few suggestions that most of the class' articles have room to improve upon. They may not all apply to your article and don't worry if they aren't all done, but these features can really make your additions shine:

• Refine the paragraph above the Table of Contents, remember it is the first thing that will be read. Considering adding a short description using this template.
• Find and add some relevant images. To make sure that you have permission to use the images, please review the WikiEdu module and read the Guide to Illustrating Wikipedia.
• Add a "See also" section of related articles by creating the heading and adding a list of internal links. Also consider adding a "External links" section, if there is somewhere relevant to link to.
• Try to find a relevant infobox or fill-in more details for the pre-existing one.
• Try to find any relevant category templates and WikiProjects. Often these were found at the bottom of the original article or on its "Talk page".
• Try to find more citations to add as references. Also, make sure to add them correctly and re-use instead of duplicate. Having a wide variety of sources can be just as important as the number.
• Clean up formatting and use some of the "wiki features". For instance, look for lists that could be sub headers, add internal links to places and concepts that readers may want more information about, consider whether "article elements" (e.g. infobox, table of contents, categories) are in the recommended order.
• Do some copy-editing. For instance, look for extra paragraphs and whitespace, inconsistent citation placement, extra periods, typos, etc. Make sure everything is written from the neutral point of view, this is an encyclopedia after all!
• Review the WikiEdu Editing Guide and see if anything else stands out.

Moving your work to Wikipedia - the detailed edition

The WikiEd "moving to mainspace" module will walk you through most of this. However, since almost everyone is working with pre-existing articles, here is the relevant checklist (with some additional commentary):

1. Open the original article and click on View history. If there were changes since you began writing (approx. January 17), and if the content that was modified is still in your sandbox (or is worth re-introducing), then make those changes in your sandbox before moving on.
2. Next, open your sandbox in Edit mode.
   (References and other templates will break if you copy from Read mode. I would go so far as to suggest using the Source editor for this task.)
3. WikiEd suggests breaking things into section so that you copy over the changes you want to make in chunks (e.g., one paragraph or section at a time). For each chunk, select the portion you want to move into the live article by highlighting and copying.
4. Open the original article in Edit mode and add your content by clicking into the proper location (or highlighting the content to be replaced) and pasting.
   (You can use the Source editor for this task as long as you source on both the sandbox and the article.)
5. Add an edit summary that says what the change was for and that it was copied from your sandbox, then click Publish changes.
   (Do not add your signature, but do include a link to your sandbox, like "copied from [[User:Your Username/Article title]]", in the edit summary.)
6. Repeat this process for all of the changes you made to the original article.
   (It may seem tedious, but this way you won't accidentally write over content that someone else contributed since you began working on the article.)
7. Make sure that the lead section reflects the new content you've added and copy-edit the article to ensure your additions mesh well with any pre-existing content that you didn't change.
8. Once you have copied everything into the live article, review page 15 of the WikiEdu Editing Guide for a final check-list.

Thank you for becoming a Wikipedia contributor!